As the holiday season approaches, we will be buying stuff to add to other stuff that we already have. As a society, we are truly quite good at collecting a lot of stuff. The more stuff we have, the more we seem to want. It is really kind of silly if you stop to think about it. You can't take any of that stuff with you when you leave this earthly plain.

But it is the holiday season, after all, and it can be exciting. We all have special holiday memories from our childhood, and if we have children in our lives, we want to make the holidays special for them.

At the end of the day, however, the real value of the holidays is less about the stuff we collect than the memories we create. I am reminded of that simple fact because I attended the memorial service of a beloved aunt this weekend. She was responsible for a lot of my happy holiday memories.

For her memorial service, she had been cremated, so her essence had been reduced to ashes that were contained in a small wooden box. We gathered in the family cemetery with the intention of memorializing her and then having her ashes scattered to mingle with those of her husband who preceded her in death a few years ago.

Family and friends gathered to honor her memory and to reflect on the moments they had shared with her over the course of the 88 years she lived.

She was my mother's older sister, and she never had children of her own. She was a strong influence on me as I grew up. I looked up to her. She was smart and accomplished, and I always wanted to be like her.

I am reminded as the result of her service that we come into the world with nothing and we leave with nothing, but we leave behind us memories with loved ones that last as long as they do.

My dad used to say that as long as someone remembered you, you lived forever. He wasn't an overly religious man, and I am not sure he believed in a Heaven the way they teach it in Sunday School, but he did know the value of leaving a legacy of memories while material things didn't mean that much to him.

What moments do you want to create this holiday season? Think about it. The moments you create now will become the memories others will carry with them later. And at the end of the day, memories are all we have, really. Stuff doesn't last...but memories do.